Soap dishes may seem like a small detail, but when you are soap maker who has artfully designed your recipe, you wouldn’t want your soap wasting away in a soggy dish. You certainly don’t want those skin loving properties to melt away before your customer gets to reap its benefits!

A bar of my handmade soap on the Soap Bar Lounge (Small) Soap Dish.

If your customers are new to handmade soap, they may not know that soap needs to be elevated and dried between uses, so offering soap dishes as an accessory give you an opportunity to educate them. Not to mention, being able to offer accessories to your products with a nicer margin and minimal work is a huge plus for any business’ bottom line!

When your soap is beautiful on its own, it doesn’t make much sense to try to pass off basic soap dishes as an accessory. A beautiful accessory will elevate your soap, rather than pull it down. So here is where soap dishes really count!

A local company, named Soap Bar Lounge, contacted Kenna about their new ceramic soap dishes made right here in the USA, and wanted to get our take on how well they work. I tested them out with my own handmade soap for a few weeks, and would love to share what I’ve found!

The side view of the Soap Bar Lounge (Small) Soap Dish

Soap Bar Lounge definitely created a unique soap dish for the market, which is not only efficient but also elegant. No longer will you have to worry about your intricate soap designs idly melting away in a soap dish when nobody is using it.

When it comes to a soap dish, there is one main thing we should all seek: draining holes or slots. This is honestly one of the most overlooked features of soap dishes, but arguably one of the most important aspects. Yes, it’s true that there are many soap dishes on the market, and while they are beautiful, they can end up proving to be a foe of handcrafted soaps. Nobody wants to be in the middle of trying to get fresh and clean, and reach for their luxurious bar of soap only to be greeted by a goopy mess.

The top view of the Soap Bar Lounge (Small) Soap Dish

Due to the curvature of this soap dish, the soap is elevated from the well, allowing air circulation around the bar to properly dry it as well as allowing any collected water in the well to evaporate before the next use. After several weeks of testing, I have yet to empty or thoroughly clean it.

The side view of the Soap Bar Lounge (Small) Soap Dish, with a bar of my soap on its side for size reference!

Speaking of cleaning, it’s a breeze! I am a big fan of lots of bubbles in my soaping formulas and have yet to have a problem with any residue build up on this dish. The drainage well is wide yet deep, allowing for very easy cleanup if necessary. Soap Bar Lounge’s glazed ceramic dishes are also dishwasher safe for further ease of clean up.

Soap Bar Lounge offers two sizes of soap dishes: small and large.

Soap Bar Lounge’s soap dishes are retail priced at $18.95 individually (regardless of size.) They are $16 each when you order two or $14 each when you order three or more. Obviously, as a soapmaker, you should be looking for wholesale prices so you can resell them to your customers! Luckily, Soap Bar Lounge offers low minimums on wholesale orders with free shipping to US postal addresses.

(Wholesale priced at $9.47 each, with a minimum of 8 soap dishes, at the time of publishing. For wholesale orders, call Len Hierath at 303-475-7230.)

All Soap Bar Lounge’s soap dishes are an original design, and are made in the USA by HF Coors. (In fact, they’re made in Tucson, Arizona!) The soap dishes are solid ceramic, so they feel solid in your hand while also being very fitting in a bathroom.

Their dishes come in two sizes: small (4.4″ x 3.2″ x 1.1″) and large (4.8″ x 3.5″ x 1.2″). For reference, my soap bars are made in the Tall and Skinny mold by Nurture Soaps and individually measure 2″ x 1″ x 3.5″ once cut and cured. The small soap dish comes in nine different colors (match your soap designs or match your branding!). The large dish currently only comes in one color (as shown.)

In my opinion, the small dishes are perfect for unique shaped bars such as rounds or cubed sugar scrubs. They are a bit small for traditional rectangular bars. For standard sized rectangular bars, I would recommend the larger size soap dish. The large dish gives ample room for your soap to sit in the dish and will provide great air circulation to dry your bar until the next bath!

Or get in touch with Len for wholesale information, questions, etc. at 303-475-7230.

I love how sturdy and well designed these dishes are and would recommend them as a great wholesale alternative to wooden soap dishes. Yes, they are a bit pricier, but we all want our beautifully crafted soaps to last and nourish our customer’s skin, not disintegrate before they can use them.

Soap Bar Lounge provided me with two soap dishes free of charge in exchange for my honest review. The opinions published here are my own and describe my honest thoughts about the product. I was not compensated in any other way for this review.

Izza Vuong is a soap maker, fine artist, and art librarian. She lives in Los Angeles, CA, but will always be a small town girl from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She loves being in the deep trenches of the soap lab creating “soap stones” for her business Beetle & Bones Apothecary. For Izza, soap making is truly where art meets alchemy.

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Reader Interactions

What Folks Are Saying

Nice work Izza! So thorough!!
In our Ad in Women’s Edition magazine we have used the words “Solid Soaps Satisfy” to help promote bar soap and my soap dish. I encourage all soap makers to uses these words. Please encourage others.
Thanks,
Len Hierath 303-475-7230
SoapBarLounge

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